The article “How many species of mammals are there?” authored by Burgin, C., et al.

, highlights
the importance of accurate taxonomy and why it is important to regularly revise the number of
recognized species of mammals since the numbers are always changing. The authors of this
article have also created a publicly accessible Mammal Diversity Database (MDD) in 2018,
whereby persons would not have to rely on irregularly released information from the Mammal
Species of the World (MSW) series, which was last updated in 2004. Also to mention that
Mammal Diversity Database will be constantly updated when manuscripts of newer and higher
taxonomic changes are released, making this database far more constant than the Mammal
Species of the World (MSW) series. Using the 3rd Edition of the Mammal Species of the World
(MSW) serves as a baseline, the authors reviewed taxonomic changes in which they found that
throughout this study that there has been an increase in the total species of mammals from 5,416
to 6,495, as well as the extinct species being increased from 75 to 96, an increase of Genera from
1,230 to 1314, an increase of recognized Families from 153 to 167, and a decrease in
Mammalian Orders from 29 to 27. The study revealed that Order Rodentia had the largest
mammalian families, also Rodentia and Chiroptera had the most species additions documented,
which were 371 and 304, respectively. The cause of the increased Genera was shown to be that
widely distributed genera were split into distinct genera, some of these include Spermophilus,
which was split into 8, and Oryzomys, which was split into 11 genera. Also, multiple smaller
genera had broken from 1 to 2 genera, causing the naming of a new Genus. Based on if a new
taxon was discovered, other genera were even created to describe those taxa. The first figure in
the article shows the average species described per decade, which had 3 major spikes, one in the
years from 1820 to 1840, the second in 1890 to 1920, and the last one from 2000 to 2010.
However, these developments were seen to be followed by 2 of the major troughs in the figure at
1850–1880 and 1930–1990. The second figure shows the biogeographical species distribution of
mammals, where the study shows that the Neotropics contains the most currently recognized
mammalian species at 1617 species, the Afrotropics having the second most recognized species
at 1572 species, followed by the Palearctic with 1162 species, and Australasia-Oceania having
the least mammalian species with 527 species. This figure also included the Marine, which has
124 species of mammalians, domesticated mammals at 17, and even extinct mammalian species
at 96 species.
Throughout this study, the authors had one clear aim, to find out how many species of mammals
there are, as well as to make the updated mammalian species count available to the public, for all
to be able to view. The article is well structured with clear and understandable tables and figures
for the information provided to be understood with ease, as well as highlighting the changes from
the MSW 3rd Edition to the MDD. It was also appreciated that the correction to the article was
published not too long after, this aided in clearing misinformation and is shown to be very
professional that the mistakes were corrected soon after.
References:
Burgin, C. J., Colella, J. P., Kahn, P. L., & Upham, N. S., 2018. How many species of mammals
are there? Journal of Mammalogy, 99(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyx147
Corrigendum: How many species of mammals are there? (2019). Journal of Mammalogy,
100(2), 615–615. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyz052